Reed Saxon/AP

As members of the choir applaud, the Rev. Al Sharpton asks for a national day of prayer for Whitney Houston, during regular Sunday services at Second Baptist Church. Houston, who was 48, died Saturday in Beverly Hills.

Al Sharpton stepped to the podium at the Second Baptist Church of Los Angeles on Sunday to speak about Whitney Houston less than 24 hours after her death in a Beverly Hills hotel room on the eve of the Grammys. Sharpton, who is asking for a national day of prayer for Houston, dedicated the first 10 minutes of his 45-minute sermon to Houston.

Mark J. Terrill / AP

Whitney Houston, the multi-Grammy winning singer, has died, according to the Associated Press.

Publicist Kristen Foster said Saturday that the pop star of the '80s and '90s had died, however the cause or her location were unclear.

Houston, who was married to pop singer Bobby Brown, reeled off a collection of hits in the '80s like "How Will I Know," and ''Saving All My Love for You". One of her biggest sellers was in the '90s the Dolly Parton penned "I Will Always Love You." from the film "The Bodyguard," in which she starred.

In 1991 before Super Bowl XXV, Houston sang the "Star Spangled Banner", a rendition that was hugely popular and was a hit single. Ten years later after the terrorist attacks of September 11, the single was re-released and skyrocketed to number 6 on the pop charts.

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A major street in Koreatown was temporarily closed to traffic, and 1,421 businesses and residential accounts were blacked out, when an underground power vault exploded today, firefighters said.

Firefighters were dispatched to a manhole on Western Avenue just south of Eight Street at 9:14 a.m., said Matt Spence of the Los Angeles City Fire Department. Spence said no injuries or above-ground damage were reported.

Department of Water and Power crews were working on a nearby project and were brought in to see what went wrong. An hour after the apparent short-circuit, power was cut to businesses, apartment buildings and traffic signals in the immediate area while repair crews went to work.

DWP crews said they expected the power to be restored to all accounts by 1 p.m.